Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, systems, and products for collaborative email with delegable authorities.
Description of Related Art
Systems for collaboration in developing email documents generally maintain a master copy of a document in a central location, record changes in the master copy, and update collaborators' copies by providing a new copy of the entire document. This uses a lot of bandwidth, particularly when there are many revisions over a period of time. There are version control systems, such as Unix's Source Code Control System or ‘SCCS’ and the open-source version control system known as the Concurrent Versions System or ‘CVS.’ Such systems are strongly oriented to version control for source code documents, however, and do not integrate very well with collaborative email, lacking, as they do, support for such collaborative features as automated updates to certain revision levels or authentication through valid digital signatures and delegable authorities for signing, viewing, and editing collaborative email documents. For these reasons, there is an ongoing need for improvements in systems and methods for collaborative email.